Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1887-05-11
TO PREVENT POISONING.
An Invention to Which the Attention of
Americans is Called.

An Invention to Which the Attention of
Americans is Called.
From the New York Mail and Express.
If some OF the thousands of Ameri-
can inventors, who are wearing out
the gray matter of their heads and
wasting their lives in q fruitless strug-
gle with the ar coupler problem and
the patent switch device, would turn
their attention to q certain practical
need of the retail druggist they might
win fortunes if not fame. The drug
gist needs some sort ofsure and sharp
preventive against the careless use of
poison in his prescription depart
ment. Fatal mistakes don't often oc-
cur, it is true. But so long as there is
no safeguard against mistakes save
the carefulness of q sleepy drug clerk,
druggists can't have g. very happy
time of it. The most experienced
compounder of prescriptions in the
world is liable to take down the
wrong bottle sometimes. 70 impress
upon their prescription clerks the fact
that they are handling poisons, drug
gists have resorted to q good many
devices. A druggist on upper Broad
way, who does large business, keeps
all of his poisons on O. separate shelf
behind glass side that has to be
opened ID q peculiar manner. Others
have curiously shaped bottles OF
deadly compounds. A common trick
is to have the labels on the bottles
printed in a strange and startling
way, so that they may be sure and
attract the attention of any one who
handles them.
The futiIity of such schemes, which,
after all, have some loopholes tor hui
man carelessness, was shown by g. re-
cent experience of the aforementioned
druggist. His store had been under
gong a spring cleaning during the day.
just after the man who hS,d rung the
drug clerk up at 2 O'Clock in the
morning to get q prescription hlled
had gone out, the Mortified clerk dis
covered that some one had trans
posed the oXalic acid and syrup SIM
pick bottles. The clerk knew the
mans name but not his address.
There were sixteen Charles Hermans
in the directory, any one of whom
might be the man with the fatal dose.
The clerk had some sense left in spite
of his excitement, and, after calling IN
UWO VI c1hO c0c AAepAAJ
messenger boys, managed to run down
the right Charles Herman before he
had tasted the contents of the bottle.
There are more gray hairs in the
clerks head now than there were g.
week ago and several Charles Her
mans had unnecessary visions of ar
rest for unknown malefactions.
The most ingenious arrangement
thus far devised is to be seen in the
dispensary of a German druggist
on Third Avenue. All the poison bot
ties are made with metal bands, to
which little chains are attached. The
chains run down behind the prescrip-
ton desk and are fastened to an au-
tomato bell. Taking the bottle from
the shell pulls the chain up and rings
the bell. The proprietor thinks that
no matter how fast asleep his clerk
may be the bell will waken him in an
instant. 1t is an expensive arrange
ment, however, and not altogether
sure. When the inventor hits upon g.
scheme that will work to an absolute
certainty, even when the clerk has
been out all night to the Deutscher
Sangerbund and is as sound asleep as
a log, he will have solved the most
preplexing problem in pharmaceutical